Microsoft Corp. gave U.S. intelligence services access to emails and web chats conducted using its Outlook.com portal, as well as audio and video of Skype calls, a new report has alleged.

Using files provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, The Guardian is reporting that Microsoft helped the NSA circumvent Outlook encryption so the agency could intercept web chats, and also provided the agency with “pre-encryption stage access to email.”

Skype, which Microsoft purchased in 2011, was also tapped for the collection of audio and video conversations – although the company has previously denied that such monitoring is possible.

According to The Guardian, “The NSA has devoted substantial efforts in the last two years to work with Microsoft to ensure increased access to Skype, which has an estimated 663 million global users.”

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The U.K. paper had previously reported that the NSA claimed to have direct access to major internet companies such as Microsoft and Skype, but also Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo, through a secretive surveillance program called Prism.

Microsoft began testing its new Outlook.com portal – a replacement to the company’s old Hotmail email service – last July, at which point the company began working with FBI to ensure its collection activities would still function under the new design.

The documents also claim that “Prism monitoring of Skype video production [had] roughly tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012,” and that Microsoft and the FBI worked together for “many months” to put these collection solutions into place.

Technology companies implicated in the Prism surveillance scandal have denied any knowledge of the secretive program, and reiterated that user data is only handed over to law enforcement when compelled by legal process.

In response, Microsoft issued the following statement to The Guardian:

We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues. First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes.

Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren’t valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate.

Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That’s why we’ve argued for additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these important issues.